Incapacity Benefit (Hansard, 23 April 1996)

§ Mr. Moss

Responsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Social Security Agency under its chief executive, Mr. Alec Wylie. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Alec Wylie to Dr. Joe Hendron, dated 22 April 1996: I have been asked to reply to your recent parliamentary question on Incapacity Benefit. You asked for information on the number of people who were in receipt of Invalidity Benefit who have since been declared ineligible for Incapacity Benefit. Unfortunately, records are not maintained on the actual number of claims which were either allowed or disallowed but I can tell you that from 13 April 1995 to 31 March 1996, 7539

Expected releases from 1 May 1996 to 30 April 1997—Figures in brackets represent the numbers affected by the application of the Northern Ireland (Remission of Sentences) Act 1995
Date	MAGILL	MAGH'B	MAZE	YOC	Total
May 1996	44 (1)	8 (1)	24 (2)	20 (0)	96 (4)
June	40 (1)	18 (1)	14 (4)	11 (0)	83 (6)
July	27 (1)	8 (2)	13 (3)	15 (0)	63 (6)
August	23 (2)	7 (2)	15 (4)	8 (0)	53 (8)
September	24 (0)	8 (2)	15 (8)	5 (0)	52 (10)
October	17 (0)	5 (1)	12 (6)	4 (0)	38 (7)
November	13 (2)	3 (2)	4 (3)	1 (0)	21 (7)
December	20 (1)	4 (2)	9 (3)	2 (0)	35 (6)
January 1997	8 (1)	2 (2)	8 (4)	2 (0)	20 (7)
February	16 (3)	5 (2)	6 (1)	1 (0)	28 (6)
March	7 (2)	1 (1)	8 (4)	4 (0)	20 (7)
April	4 (1)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	4 (1)
Total	243 (15)	69 (18)	128 (42)	73 (0)	513 (75)

In addition there are currently 20 prisoners who are in the final stages of release from life sentences and who are provisionally expected to be released during the next 12 months. None of these prisoners have benefited directly from the 1995 increase in remission rates.